ro3

'Where are you headed?'

Alarmed, Magallan looks around and covers her ears.

Am I hearing things?

She walks out of the Fjal Vetrtonn, and finds the icefield before her eyes.

The blizzard rumbles in the sky. Its roar pierces her body.

The gridlock of jagged frozen earth and the eternal ice sends both tremors and chills up through her feet.

She is now within the blizzard.

She can no longer reject the voice.

'Where are you headed?'

An impossibly heavy gaze lands on the young outlander.

Yet she feels not the oppression of being questioned. Instead, she feels a thirst to confide in this ancient will.

I... will explore the unknown.

'With what will you walk forth?'

Hm...

Curiosity, bravery, knowledge, technology...

And also... the experience of those who've walked before me, and the help of my Sami friends.

Before the joint expedition team set out, we even said in our manifesto that we bear 'the mission of pioneering the future for all mankind.'

—It really satisfies the ego, but I guess it's a bit too lofty for me to say myself, hehe. A wish is just a wish. That's all.

Yep. To me, wishes are important too.

'What do you seek to take away?'

Ecological samples, data, notes, photos...

Knowledge about Sami, the key that leads to the icefield.

And... myself!

My teacher told me that the most, most important thing during an expedition is to survive. That's the only way you'll get to hand what you've collected over to others and pass on your knowledge.

I have a question too.

Are you Sami itself?

Suddenly, the sound of the icefield's winds becomes all the clearer.

The protector has allowed her to walk out of Its embrace.

It has accepted this outlander, seeing her as Its own child.

As such, It pushes the outsider further into the icefield's blizzard, into the frigid cold and toward the fate that the Sami have haughtily and peacefully accepted.

...Actually, I was a little unsure at first. There have been no records of Sami talking to an outsider before.

The Sami also say that you fell asleep, and rarely speak at all anymore.

All-Father... Have you asked anyone else questions like this?

And where did the expeditioners who answered you go afterwards?

The weather gets terrible once you make it through the Fjal Vetrtonn. *sigh* Like now.

You okay, Maggy?

Eh, I'm no stranger to the icefield anymore.

*sigh*... Were you really just spacing out, then?

Huh?! No! I was just thinking about something!

...Like Simone said, it can't be that the Columbians are the only ones who like to explore. That Ursus only likes to expand its territory, and the Sami have no interest in the outside world.

In every era, there are bound to be expeditioners who want to scale the mountains, leave Sami's embrace, and walk toward the endless icefield.

Of course.

Sami's warriors are silent and conservative, but if anyone wishes to do so, Samivilinn will not stop them.

Why, what's wrong?

Hehe, nothing. Let's go.

She doesn't tell her that she might only have found the self-evident answer in a trance. Or that she may have heard tens of thousands of stories over that much span of history.

In an instant, she learned the names of countless men and women who went unrecorded in the history books—The expeditioners who never returned.

The face of the endless icefield does not seem to have gotten much clearer, either.

Even so, will she keep moving forward?

Sami no longer waits for her answer. The mountains gradually disappear into the blizzard behind her.

All there is before her eyes is a vast, silver-white field and a dark shadow stretching on without end.

It is well known that Samivilinn has Its favorites.

It taught the daughter of winter to tame the wind and snow, and gifted a dying warrior the lifeforce of a branch.

The greatest Snowpriest of the north was brought back from the brink of death, repaired by the earth, his missing horn replaced by a tree branch.

...I'll hold back the snowstorm. You guys need to leave.

Tell this to the other warriors of the north:

'Once again, we've encountered a disaster exceeding all previous records.'

'The threat from the icefields is increasing.'

And...

His horn is broken.

The blessing has returned to the earth. The gifted life has faded away. The body is full of black cracks, unable to return to the mountains and forests anymore.

...'An important position on the frontlines has been lost.'

'The corrupted warriors have been pacified through our combined efforts.'

'The shaman Santalla oversaw the ceremony of parting.'

After hundreds upon hundreds, thousands upon thousands of battles, winter has come.

The warriors of the mountains know better than anyone that demonic corruption cannot be reversed. Their minds and bodies are doomed to become both the enemy's territory and sustenance.

They are frozen in their last act, their bodies occupied by death and nullity.

But Santalla knows that one last spark of willpower continues to struggle against the cold winds of the icefields, that one last vestige of consciousness keeps them waiting.

Enduring all the pain and suffering that fate had in store for them, enduring their own tragic ends, waiting for those who would come after them.

Waiting for the cleansing frost to cover the carcasses that dark wounds had corrupted, to cover the last marks of 'Treescar' on the land.

Santalla raises her staff high to bid farewell.

The hero leads his warriors into their final battle, their inevitable fate.

No war cries, no questions, no turning back.

Fate never wavers. Warriors are never moved by time.

Young torch-bearer—

The lives of the warriors become frozen.

They cast their gaze beyond Santalla, continuing to keep watch over the eternal icefield.

Santalla walks into the cemetery of warriors, through them, towards the next camp on the frontline.

Once, she was the most favored child of Sami. Now, she feels the embrace of the wind and snow again.

She commands the wind to brush away the snow from the warrior's broken horn. This trace of wind is soon buried again, beneath the falling snow.

But she knows that, from this day forth, she will continue to brush away the black snow that falls on the land.

Until—

'We have seen the lands swallowed by darkness.'

'We have seen the door that will open at the end of the icefields.'

'We bear witness to fate, undivided from beginning to end.'

'To arrive at the end, I will restore its cause.'

The foreseen future lies before me.

Through trials and tribulations, through trial and error.

The survey team arrived here under the Cyclops's guidance, here at end of the endless icefields, in the north beyond the north.

The inscrutable object stands tall, its base covered in rootless flowers.

The explorers who made it this far are no strangers to fear, and fear is what now spreads through everyone's minds.

Somehow, they all know that if the door could be opened, that a dark fate awaits beyond.

But the Cyclops has already begun walking towards it.

She has been walking towards it ever since the day she emerged from her cave.

Her vision starts to warp. Perception and understanding are causing space to collapse rapidly.

Knowledge from the rift begins to encroach upon reality. Those who wish to stop the coming of the ill fate could not make a sound in the interfered fear.

Like all the others, Typhon gazes at the figure.

Unlike the others, Typhon has seen her embark on her date with fate many times.

The Cyclops never explains where she is going. Simply follow the guidance of the fate she speaks of, and they would meet again someday.

But this time, Typhon feels compelled to call out to her, to stop her.